Gearing up for long flight south
Anyone musing about the halcyon days of air travel should watch migrating swallows and martins for a reassuring sense of nostalgia.
How times change. Remember not having to pay for drop-offs outside airports? Or not being corralled through busy luggage check-ins before a security pat-down you would expect at a football match?
Looking up at sleek swallows, fleet-winged house martins and dinky, all-action sand martins is a far more joyous experience than any ordeal in a departure lounge these days.
Over the past few weeks I have seen these sky masters performing aerobatic displays that would be the envy of the Red Arrows, all to fuel flights into Africa. Not that they are too discerning where they hawk for insects, be it over splendid stately homes or unprepossessing sewage works.
The first indication that hirundines – the scientific term for birds of the swallow family – are on aerial manoeuvres comes with their excited chattering as they communicate with some celestial air traffic control.
Once sighted, the challenge is on to positively identify the dashing shapes in the air. Luckily, each species has enough plumage and structural clues to help with identification.
Sand martins are earthy shades of brown across the head and back with an off-white throat and belly separated by a dark band. They are smaller and more delicate than their travelling companions.
A swallow’s upper parts are a velvety, midnight blue with white or sometimes rusty colour on the underparts. Adult birds have distinctive tail streamers.
Separating silhouettes of young, stubbytailed swallows from similarly shaped house martins can still confuse after decades of birding. Spotting the martin’s distinctive white rump is the clincher.
Surprisingly, although still locked together in the skies over the English countryside, soon these birds will separate to reach a different journey’s end.
Swallows head for South Africa, while sand martins haunt the arid margins on the edge of the Sahara.
Exactly where British house martins spend their winters in the tropics remains one of the great ornithological mysteries.
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It’s still a mystery where British house martins spend their winters